There is currently significant research and development of new technologies and services (e.g., social networks) that may be implemented in mobile or wireless networks, where different types of features (e.g., presence, location) may converge to give a more complete service. But in many instances, network operators still fail to ensure a high quality in basic services, such as a voice call, across the all geographic regions where the network operator provides service. This failure in a number of those instances is due at least in part to difficulties in optimizing the network at different points of coverage, in addition to the continuous changes that are made to the network equipment. In this regard, difficulties encountered by network operators include lack of authorization to enter private locations, as well as a significant investment that may be required to engage a sufficient workforce to cover many points of coverage. And further, the rather continual changing of network equipment adds further difficulty in monitoring the network in its area of coverage.
One way of evaluating basic voice services is to evaluate the quality of voice signals received at terminals engaged in a voice call, which should account for any network degradation between the transmitting terminal and the receiving terminal. For this, there are algorithms for objectively assessing the quality of a voice signal and determining a corresponding score or other quantitative value. One algorithm in use today is described in ITU-T Recommendation P.862, entitled: Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality (PESQ): An Objective Method for End-to-End Speech Quality Assessment for Narrow-Band Telephone Networks and Speech Coders, which has been shown to be an accurate and confident algorithm for determining the quality of a voice signal.